"My Favorite Museum Exhibit": Urine facts

"My Favorite Museum Exhibit" is a series of posts aimed at giving BoingBoing readers a chance to show off their favorite exhibits and specimens, preferably from museums that might go overlooked in the tourism pantheon. I'll be featuring posts in this series all week. Want to see them all? Check out the archive post. I'll update the full list there every morning.

Tom Ruginis took this photo in a men's restroom at the Science Museum Oklahoma. I spent an inordinate amount of time at this museum as a preteen, back when it was called the Omniplex (it shares a complex with an air and space museum, botanical gardens, a photography museum, and for some reason I was never able to fully understand ... a gymnastics hall of fame).

In case you can't read the sign, it says, "During your lifetime, you will make approximately 10,000 gallons of urine."

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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http://twitter.com/gregorylam Gregory Lam

Awesome! I remember when I was young, the Planetarium restrooms at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Canada featured a large diagram on space toilets facing the urinals (I believe the Womens had a similar pictoral near the sinks). I hope they’ve kept it; it was a great little easter egg to read while answering the call of nature.
Shazbot

The Omniplex was the raddest thing ever.
ROSSINDETROIT

Cheap, interesting and likely to be remembered. This is a great way to teach science.
Cameron McKinney

I still call it the Omniplex, but then again since I moved away to Texas, I didn’t know its name had changed. Such an odd combination of museums. Like the dresses of the First Ladies of the governors, the photography museum, that model railroad display, the air and space, the naval museum of dioramas , etc….
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Wasn’t there also, like, some ancient Chinese pottery tucked away in a random corner upstairs? I feel like I remember that, but there was so much at the Omniplex that I might be taking that room from another museum and mentally dropping it in there.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=1118134806 Doc_S

And next Monday, on an all new “Hoarders,” someone who’s saved it all.
Ambiguity

Cool. A spam-bot who’s into watersports!
http://twitter.com/MsBottomlessPit Heather

It will always be the Omniplex to me. Glad to see love in the comments for the first lady dresses. I always loved the earthquake simulators, mirror maze, and shadow room. And the airplanes. Ok, I love everything about the Omniplex.
msbpodcast

I love drinking Belgian beers. I’m sure that I’ve, uh, produced far more than that. :-)
http://twitter.com/BFIrrera Bryan Irrera

They have something similar at “Rafiki’s Planet Watch” at “Conservation Station” in Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida…they have a “Whiz Quiz” above the urinals with the answers posted above the sinks. You can find a picture here:
http://land.allears.net/blogs/jackspence/2009/07/rafikis_planet_watch_the_forgo.html
Beanolini

Is there a corresponding statistic like ‘during your life you will inadvertently drink 10 gallons of urine’?
Cammie Backus

The gymnastics hall of fame is there because International Gymnast (the oldest magazine for gymnasts & gymnastics enthusiasts) is located in nearby Norman–residence of Bart Conner and Nadia Comaneci.
http://www.peterbagge.com/ Buddy Bradley

Oh man the Omniplex and zoo were the best things in OKC as a kid. Anybody remember Enterprise Square, USA? I even loved that too, although it was dedicated to right-wing capitalist greed :)
- http://twitter.com/cjporkchop cjporkchop
  
  Enterprise Square FTW! I loved that place even more than ShowBiz Pizza! Even though the “Hall of Giants” kinda scared me when I was very small. (Picture at the bottom here– http://www.oc.edu/academy/heartofamerica/historyofes2.php)
  
  It broke my heart when I found out it closed.
cousin229

I am enjoying this great series!
Thank you Mrs Maggie